Thanks for sharing that thread. It was interesting to see the response from Distrowatch about that distro's announcement. When we write announcements of upcoming releases, we need to capture the attention of the readers so that they'll be motivated to try VL and to up our standings on Distrowatch.

It would also help if somebody were willing to come forward and become our website admin, now that UKBill has gone into retirement. The site sorely needs to be updated. Any volunteers?

Thanks for sharing that thread. It was interesting to see the response from Distrowatch about that distro's announcement. When we write announcements of upcoming releases, we need to capture the attention of the readers so that they'll be motivated to try VL and to up our standings on Distrowatch.

While rankings are not of importance in the grand scale of things rankings on Distrowatch are important in as much as they get more people to try out Vector, and hopefully feedback results too, thus ensuring a quality product.....

I was surprised that dynamite got no mention while some distros issue new releases that update the wallpaper and substitute some latest version of some apps and call it a new release.... thus getting coverage.

I am still a total novice and have much to learn, but all I can do is install a new RC, and do everything I would normally do on some other OS, and let you know what broke or did not broke.

That, in essence, is what beta testing is all about. Install the beta or release candidate, use it for everything you can think of, try out all your peripherals, removables, cameras, printers, etc., and see if everything works smoothly. Install whatever programs you normally use and see if they work as they should. Set up your network, your scanner, and any services you use and see what happens. Describe problems in the forum section for reporting bugs with the beta version you're using.

The more people who test the better. The nature of bugs is that they can be unpredictable. What works on one system may not work on another. Since the developers are small in number and don't have a wide assortment of equipment on which to test, they need as many volunteer testers as possible to test beta versions on a broad range of hardware doing many different things with their computers.

It's really fun to test as each version comes out and you have the satisfaction of knowing you're doing something really important for making VectorLinux the best distro it can be.--GrannyGeek

I'm not fond of arguments over what's the "best" distro or even what's the best operating system. These tend to be religious wars. Given that Linux users have such different hardware, different ideas of what they want their computers to do, different levels of geekiness, different preferences with regard to desktop environments and window managers, different willingness to spend money, and different attitudes about ideological purity, how could there possibly be a "best" distro?

It doesn't seem to me that a contest between VectorLinux Standard and Freespire makes a lot of sense. I acknowledge that I haven't tried Freespire, but I'm familiar with Lindows/Linspire and as far as I know, Freespire continues the tradition. VL Standard (and SOHO, too) has a very different philosophy behind the distro. VL aims for speed, stability, flexibility, and a solid foundation on which to build. Ease of use is important but doesn't override the other goals. Freespire aims for ease of use above all else--Freespire believes Linux should be at least as easy to use as Windows. Freespire is designed to shield users from the inner workings of Linux. A goal is that a user will never need to use a command line. I doubt any VectorLinux user could avoid the command line for long--and I think VL users like it that way.

I don't like contests and shootouts, but I do like straightforward comparisons. What is the installation like? What are possible pros and cons of each type? What are desktop choices? What programs are installed? How does a user install additional software? What basic hardware is needed for good performance? And so forth.

I'm not sure comparisons like this are all that useful to the first-time Linux user, though. I think you need to install a distro and use it for a while to get some sense of what running Linux is like. Are there things you don't like about it? Then look for a distro that does things differently. That's the real difference between Linux and the other major operating systems. Linux gives us abundant choices.--GrannyGeek

You are right granny geeek. Freespire are doing good job with marketing. It is Debian-based. I would have started out there, but due the community involvement here, one is able to learn fast. What VL does over most other totally gui dependent is teach users how to use both gui and CLI. In time, users realize the great advantage of the CLI over the gui. Others still prefer the gui. This is the thing of choice.

CLI yields alot of power fast to the user and is the closest thing to keeping users aware of linux as compared to gui which could take on many forms.

If I were to start with a distro like Vector, it would have been slightly tough with no linux or simple skills except for just win98 or XP.

Mepis and Xandros were my starting point. These were better to me as they did not totally eliminate the CLI. They gave the user options. And tricked or coerced the user to doing things without knowing how they did it. I still respect those distros greatly.

So in the end, there is nearly such a thing as the best distro; But the answer is a subjective one depending on a users skill level, the community, PC hardware, and preferences in software management, etc. But for some others, the best distro is not existent. This is why they use various distros.

For select few, the best distro or OS would be the linux kernel itself. As you can build anything on top of it.

There are lots of replies on the amateur desktop design, but don't you guys think that Poor documentation is the biggest thing to worry about?

I don't know exactly what they mean with Poor Documentation, but once you can get to the internet you get all documentation you want. Ok, some of these could be put on to the CD, but than again you need an internet connection to get the ISO

One other thing that is, in my experience, a pro is good support (thanks to everyone btw)

Now what the comparisons and 'best' disto is concerned I agree with the fact that it is and it should be personal taste and what exactly it is you want you pc to do. My opinion about OSes in general is that it should be rock solid and as long as you don't change a thing it should run and keep on running like it did the first day you installed it.

And Linux Distro that tries to mimic Windows I really pitty them. Why driving a Rolls Royce that looks like a crappy .... (Fill in the dots yourself, I don't want to get answers like "that's not a crappy car" )

What the CLI think is concerned, why running a bloaded GUI if you're running a server where you only have to use the console to change some settings?

I know what you guys are thinking "VL and Freespire aren't server oriented distro's". True, but you have the daemons to do so, so why not doing it the way it should in text mode